NY Gentrification Watch
So, for the past few months now, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to broach the subject of how anti-landlord populism is actually just another cynical psychological warfare tactic being exploited by Big Development. It was in anticipation of talking about this topic that prompted me to write Gentrification & Psychological Warfare: The Culture War.
In spite of having written what I thought was a fairly decent write up about how culture wars are often exploited by Big Development, I still struggled to complete an entry on how it was now using the one between landlords and tenants for its own gain. The reason why I had such a hard time is that so-called “tenant advocacy” groups have been doing such a bang up job hijacking and destroying any nuanced discussion about rising rents and gentrification that it’s practically impossible to try to explain the situation from the landlord’s perspective without being immediately seen as The Enemy.
But then again, that’s how a culture war works. You make it so that a very complex issue is boiled down to either/or, black or white. There are no shades of grey, no balance. In the case of gentrification, everyone must completely demonize and scapegoat all landlords for rising rents and displacement; if you color just a hair outside the “all landlords are the devil” line, you’re an evil supporter of gentrification.
Because the culture war between landlords and tenants has been so successfully hijacked by fringe tenants rights groups–I struggled to figure out how to write about this topic without stepping on everyone’s toes. I was worried of what people would think, afraid that they might think I had gone turncoat or have been insincere this entire time about my fight against gentrification. But then came the #cancelrent movement, a completely ridiculous, counter-productive slacktivist campaign that seemed to come out of nowhere and has all the earmarks of a carefully coordinated troll farm campaign by fringe elements on the internet.
21 comments:
The fringe groups are advocates of communism and that's precisely how the destruction of mom and pops will end. Since the mortgage collapse of 2008, Blackrock has become the biggest holder of single family homes. This happened because the Federal Reserve lent large private equity firms money at 0% (Bernanke actually approached Blackrock with this idea to prevent further deflation of the housing market and further damage to large banks). This is the "cantillon effect" where people at the top get cheap money to buy assets, thereby inflating asset prices. The average person does not have access to 0% loans nor are they aware of the money pouring into certain assets (e.g., real estate) until prices have already inflated. Fear of missing out (FOMO) inspires the average guy to buy a multifamily, condo or house to rent out via Airbnb. Assets continue to inflate until the last fool is in; municipalities increase assessments, property and school tax increase, labor and materials get tight, insurance premiums sky rocket and the cost increases are then passed on to tenants. The mom and pops will be the first to fall and private equity vultures will buy their properties for pennies on the dollars with 0% interest courtesy of the Fed. But beware: private equity will not pass its savings on to their tenants. They will have multiple layers of management and employ a cadre of lawyers to grieve assessments and starve municipalities of money they need to pay for public services like cops and garbage collectors. They will kick nuisance and dirt bag tenants to the street swiftly and these tenants will find that landlords finally have the upper hand in court thanks to political donations. Crapper, it doesn't matter how clearly you make your argument in partial support of landlords; militant tenant advocates won't listen. Communists don't love the poor, they just hate the rich but they will find that they can never touch the really rich because they own the politicians. I give you credit for trying.
Reddit. Owned by the Chinese. Better off without it. It’s only good for browsing cam whores.
#divestfromchina
When in doubt remember the words of this brave Hong Kong protester
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BLF_iLuHtV8
All my friends who are Democrat all talk of rent strikes,me I just keep paying my bills on time and don't blame anyone but China that has made this problem 10 times worse with THIER carelessness or on purpose,we may never know,and now my girlfriend is layed off.
I went out today and went to two shopping center areas and noticed all the nation wide stores such as Lowes, Kroger, The Dollar Store, Pizza Hut ,Burger King ect. was open so I drove around and checked things out. At both centers every single local small business was closed and every big name store was open. I really think this is very much a part of their plan. All the money will be spent that anyone has left with the rich 1% illuminati families.
You have a moral responsibility to pay your bills !
The Left has their collective heads up their arse. You try to discuss things with them and they seem to be completely clueless - hate to say it but they are worse than backward folk who live in the sticks and do not know what is going on in the real world.
The Left is living in the middle of urban centers, educated, have access to the latest, all they can do is recite platitudes and slogans without knowledge of how things really work.
I have all but given up trying to work with them. They are losing the country to Trump and are in for a big shock over the next 4 years. I remember Kennedy and Humphrey and Stevenson. Shame.
LEFT VERSUS RIGHT....same old blog chatter!
These soap box pontificators have been sequestered in their armchairs long before the COVID lockdown. Now they have more time to post nonsense and anger!
This is SERIOUS SHIT. Our family and friends are DYING.....both LEFT AND RIGHT!
"Backward folk who live in the sticks"
Some of the best caring people on earth live in the sticks.
The can Hunt, Fish and Farm the land to feed themselves and family.
Living in the country can make you stronger and more independent as a person.
"The Left has their collective heads up their arse. You try to discuss things with them and they seem to be completely clueless - hate to say it but they are worse than backward folk who live in the sticks and do not know what is going on in the real world."
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These people that we're talking about are not The Left. They're fringe elements on the internet being ENCOURAGED by neoliberal/libertarian Silicon Valley douchebags to supplant the voice of The Left.
They did the same thing to the Right. For years and years and years we used to have AMERICAN Rightwing pundits like Pat Buchanan, George F. Will and Ann Coulter. Then all of a sudden, social media started pushing British and Canadian foreign nationals like Gavin McInnes, Milo Yiannopoulos and Piers Morgan to be mouthpieces of the American Right.
The point is that this is not a Left versus Right issue. This is a Silicon Valley vs The Rest of Us issue. Silicon Valley are neoliberals and libertarians. They've been using their platforms (Reddit, YouTube, Facebook) to declare war on ALL of us, be it Rightwing, Leftwing, Moderate so they can take over. And what better way to take us all out than by allowing basement dwelling trolls pretending to be Left, Right, etc. so that we all become outraged by what the other is "supposedly" saying and doing?
That's EXACTLY what's happening now with this whole #cancelrent bullshit. I'm a left-leaning moderate and I'm telling you that no dyed-in-the-wool leftist would ever be on board this shit. This is fringe campaign being encouraged by social media-created Silicon Valley douchebags, just as that stupid "lock down protest" out in Michigan was encouraged by them.
" Anonymous said...
I went out today and went to two shopping center areas and noticed all the nation wide stores such as Lowes, Kroger, The Dollar Store, Pizza Hut ,Burger King ect. was open so I drove around and checked things out. At both centers every single local small business was closed and every big name store was open."
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+1
I live out in East Flatbush near Canarsie and Mill Basin, and it was the funniest thing. Home Depot, Target Lowe's, Dollar Tree, etc. were all open. But the parallel Moms and Pops that sell the exact same merchandise were all closed. So, Bobby's Department Store, Telco, all the indie hardware stores and the mom and pop dollar stores were closed. And of course, business was booming at the major retailers because what with all the moms and pops closed, customers had no choice but to shop at them.
Gosh, it's almost as if there was something sinister behind all of this.
You Fucking Slaves Imploding An Economy Is Not A Pandemic's Remedy ! #MAGA %100
NO MANDATORY ANYTHING
NO WORLD ORDER
FREEDOM FROM TYRANNY
@Unknown, you hit the nail on the head. These are not tenants rights groups but Communists and other fringe elements. Before anyone rages that I'm a crazed Alt Righter who thinks anything slightly left of Nazi is "Communist," just Google "#cancelrent" and you'll see that 90% of the manifestos and diatribes posted on various websites, Reddit, etc. are all being posted by self-ascribed Communists and anarchists. They're not even trying to hide that this is what they are. They are not only posting as Communists but posting Communist propaganda along with their diatribes.
If you all don't want to Google, a link you can check out is the profile of a NY Curbed poster by the name of LandlordsDelendaEst (Latin for "Landlords must be destroyed"). This is another troll on Curbed NY who just popped up out of the blue in the wake of this #cancelrent crap and has been spending the past few days posting anti-landlord agitprop. This person has been spamming comments with a picture of Mao Zedong. (Here is the profile link: https://www.curbed.com/users/LandlordsDelendaEst).
Another thing: besides Communists and anarchists, antisemites are also driving this #cancelrent/rent strike campaign. They believe that all landlords are Jews, responsible for gentrification/rising rents. If you want to see a textbook example of a virulently antisemitic self-ascribed "tenant advocate", check out Thomas Lopez-Pierre. (Story: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/blasting-jewish-landlords-n-y-candidate-says-he-s-not-anti-semitic-1.5466523) He may seem like a crazy outlier of tenant advocacy, but no, he is emblematic of the typical tenant advocate.
Not only that, people like him have been spreading disinfo among residents in communities most vulnerable to gentrification that it's all because of "the Jews."Over the past year, I've been trying to have conversations with people offline about gentrification and no matter how many times I bring up speculators, flippers, politicians, etc. they always invariably launch into a tirade about "the Jews" being responsible (as in "the Jews" are buying up all the property or "the Jews" are buying and flipping all the property and "the Jews" are causing gentrification). I never encountered this level of antisemitism until very recently.
So, anyone who thinks #cancelrent is attractive for any reason should really take pause and try to consider who is driving this movement and why. It's not what everyone thinks it is.
@minababe said... so much for the tolerant left !
What is this propaganda?
Those people advocating for Communist/Collectivist schemes in a time of national emergency are the exact same people who want to see the numbers of fatalities due to Coronavirus rise exponentially.
They are dead-enders unable to make the most of the opportunity, bounty and freedom afforded them in this great nation.
Thus, they project their jealousy onto ideas and agendas that willfully seek the destruction of this nation's economic foundations.
In short; the online forums and blogs are filled with angry Leftists trying to work out daddy issues, because they were too lazy to build something with their own God-given talents in a country that gives opportunity to all.
Harry Haller
Thank You Harry !
God Bless You and The United States of America !
More toadying nonsense from landlord tenant lawyers terrified that their billings will cease.
They all have the same party line
Is it the same person?
quote ......their own God-given talents in a country that gives opportunity to all.unquote
Nonsense like that means it's written by a bottom feeding landlord lawyer who wished they could be a writer but wound up representing NYC slumlords aka the scum of the earth. Thanks to the landlord's attorneys there are many homeless men, women and children on the streets of New York City tonight. There's plenty of room for all of them to stretch out for once to sleep, now that the subways are empty.
Yes, as through this world I've rambled I've seen lots of funny men,
Some will rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain pen.
But as through your life you'll travel, wherever you may roam,
You won't never see no outlaw drive a family from their home
You have a moral responsibility to pay your bills !
I'm ROFL with this one. The landlords have a moral responsibility to provide heat, hot water and decent living conditions. Why this is such a crock of house crap, Queens Crap.Queens County has the most corrupt Housing Court of all five boros. There is a judge who was given a rent stablized apartment by a landlord because he evicted a tenant.
"I'm ROFL with this one"
Go wrangle some rhubarb, ya iron-deficient toad licker New York City Libtard !
How can I get work stumping for slum lords on Queens Crap? Looks like some of these posters are on the slumlords payroll.
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